This illuminated copy of One hundred sayings, referred to as Mi’at kalimah in Arabic and Ṣad kalimah in Persian and attributed to the fourth caliph of Islam, ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40 AH / 661 CE), contains a Persian paraphrase (dubayt) by Rashīd al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Balkhī, known as al-Vaṭvāṭ (Waṭwāṭ) (d. ca. 578 AH / 1182 CE). The manuscript was completed in Iran sometime in the ninth century AH / fifteenth CE. The sayings of `Ali in Arabic are written in blue muḥaqqaq and gold thuluth scripts, and the Persian verses are written in black naskh scripts. The codex opens with an illuminated titlepiece inscribed in white tawqī script (fol. 1b). The dark brown goatskin binding with central lobed medallion and pendants and doublures with filigree decoration may date to the ninth or tenth century AH / fifteenth or sixteenth CE.
